‘Nazi slogan’ UKIP politician believes in ‘bongo bongo land'

GEOGRAPHY LESSONS NEEDED: UKIP's Godfrey Bloom seems to live in an alternate reality where you can visit "bongo bongo land" (PA)

ANTI-EUROPEAN POLITICAL party UKIP is back in the headlines for racially "offensive" remarks after one of its senior politicians decided to create a new country called "bongo bongo land”.

The geographically-challenged MEP Godfrey Bloom made the comments on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, criticising the government’s foreign aid spending.

He said: “What I would argue is that it is for the individual citizen. It's not for the likes of David Cameron to pick up our pockets and send money to the charities of his choice.

“If I want to send money to charity, I will do it of my own accord.

“If I've offended anybody in bongo bongo land I will write to their ambassador at the Court of St James.”

Bloom’s first use of the term “bongo bongo land” – a dismissively derogatory term aimed at African nations – was first recorded last month at a UKIP meeting in Wordsley, West Midlands.

In the footage recently obtained by the Guardian, he is heard saying: “How we can possibly be giving £1bn a month, when we're in this sort of debt, to bongo bongo land is completely beyond me.

“To buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris, Ferraris and all the rest of it that goes with most of the foreign aid.

“F18s for Pakistan. We need a new squadron of F18s. Who's got the squadrons? Pakistan, where we send the money.”

The inflammatory remarks will do nothing to change the prevailing perception that UKIP harbours outright xenophobic and racist elements among its support and leadership.

LIFE-SAVING TREATMENT: UK overseas aid prevents children from dying from preventable diseases, while Bloom claims it is spend on designer glasses and sports cars

It follows the announcement that the Department of International Development is spending about £10m on polio vaccinations for communities in Sudan and Kenya after World Health Organisation warnings.

The UK spends 0.7 percent of its annual GDP on overseas aid – it has helped millions of children be vaccinated against deadly diseases and enabled millions more to attend school.

Also in the footage, Bloom displayed his disdain for the EU and its human rights laws, arguing that Britain should bring back the death penalty

He said: “You can torture people to death but you jolly well can't give them a full life sentence because that's against their human rights.

“We can't hang them because we're now a member of the European Union and it's embedded in the Treaty of Rome.”

The UKIP MEP, who was thrown out of the European Parliament in 2010 for making a Nazi slogan at a German counterpart, added that he would be “delighted” to “throw the rope of the beam” in order to hang people.

Reacting to his racially charged comments, Laura Pidcock, from campaign group Show Racism the Red Card, said they were “incredibly damaging”.

She told Today: “I think what Godfrey needs to understand is that intention is irrelevant in defining the outcome of prejudice or the existence of prejudice and actually who defines what political correctness is?

“Political correctness is not homogenising people, is not saying that they are the ones who need to be civilised - they are still part of this colonial idea of bongo drums.

“Actually he needs to understand that it is highly offensive and what he meant by it isn't important - it's the outcome that's important.”